Placement of light strands on, for example, a Holiday tree typically involves the user first unpacking one or several strands from a storage box or bag. In storage, the strands often are tangled or twisted and must be straightened out by the user before being ready for placement onto the tree. The untangling is done away from the tree, using the floor or a chair. To then connect the strands to the tree, the installer typically will grasp one strand at a time in one hand, and with the other hand place the strand among the branches while circling the tree.
Another approach is for the installer to leave the light strand on the floor or a chair, mount an end of the strand to some point on the tree and walk in a circular path to attach the strand to branches around the tree's perimeter. This approach requires the user to repeatedly re-position the un-installed portion of the strand on the floor or move the chair. Otherwise the un-installed portion will snag around the tree trunk or branches.
The typical take-down process presents similar problems. As the user disengages the strand from the tree with one hand, the removed portion is supported in the other. Alternatively, the user accumulates a pile of light strands on the floor where the bulbs can be inadvertently trampled. The user is constrained typically to disconnecting the several strands to prepare them for storage, although the strands may need to be re-connected in the same sequence for the next use. Further, it is hard to avoid tangling the strands during the act of placing them on the floor and then back in the storage box or bag. The net result is the user having to untangle the strands yet again before their next use.
Once in box or bag storage, the light strands obviously don't have any lighting or decorative utility until they are re-installed back onto a tree or other support. What is needed is a mechanism, which at least avoids the preceding difficulties, by simplifying and speeding up the process of light strand mounting and takedown. The mechanism also must provide efficient storage of the strands when not in use. If in addition the mechanism offers the possibility of putting the strands to a useful purpose while they are in their physical storage configuration, the combination of advantages could be attractive to a user.